Characterization of Pd-ni Thin Film by Annealing Method

Thin film electrode production and characterization for heat cell studies are described. The objective is two-fold: maximizing excess heat production and insuring a long lifetime and electrolysis. To do this in a reproducible faction, a pre-and post-run analysis of the films was carried out using various probe techniques. In this study, various Pd-Ni thin films were manufactured using with a magnetron sputtering method. A variety of methods for pre-conditioning of substrates were experimented with. The samples were also treated by different annealing methods using inert gas and vacuum annealing processes. The investigations of samples were performed in an UHV system equipped with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It is shown that the vacuum annealed samples provided the best films. This suggests that vacuum annealing can pull bubbles from pores in the thin film, giving a higher density thin film that performs better. These results and their implications for electrode development will be discussed.